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Top 5 cities with the highest auto-theft rate

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Members of the Essex Union Car Theft Task Force run license plate numbers as they cruise the streets of Newark. Newark was by far the top city in New Jersey with the highest rate of car thefts.
(Tim Farrell/The Star-Ledger)

The rankings are based on the number of cars stolen per 1,000 people using the total number of thefts in each municipality over the last three years (2010 through 2012) and the city's population.

Newark easily came in at number one in both sheer numbers of cars stolen and ratio, the report said. Nearly 4,000 vehicles were stolen in 2012 in Newark, a city with 277,000 people. According to the report, Newark’s average number of cars stolen was 3,804, with a per capita rating of 13.7 vehicles stolen per 1,000 people.